Join the digital journey

Introduction

Our big idea

By achieving our potential for digital transformation with citizens and communities, Scottish environment organisations will be more resilient and ready to move quickly and collaboratively on tackling the climate and nature crisis. This is essential for Scotland's contribution to progressing the Sustainable Development Goals, as articulated in Scotland by its National Performance Framework.

Our aim is to explore how, together, environment organisations can use innovative digital technologies to address the shared challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss, and work together to create a nature-rich future. Through improved science, slicker internal operations and more targeted public engagement we can all be better informed, more effective and better focused on improving the environment and empower the public to help us on this journey.

What are we trying to achieve on this site?

• What will this planning space do? We believe that the environment sector in Scotland will achieve its digital potential faster if it collaborates openly on this agenda.

• How to get involved? This site is a shared and open planning space for the environment sector in Scotland. Use this space to collaborate with others openly on the digital transformation agenda.

• How this site works? You can immediately start working on developing this wiki, whenever you want (no wiki experience required). There is no need to register or sign in, unless you want your ideas to be attributed to you (so others can see who has contributed what). We want you to directly shape these plans by adding your ideas and content to this wiki. It will directly inform the digital transformation agenda for the environment sector in Scotland.

Why are we using a wiki?

• It’s accessible through the government firewalls – many proprietary digital platforms are not
• It’s more robust and road-tested – it uses the same underlying technology as Wikipedia . While it’s old tech, it has been evolving extensively over the years
• It’s easier for people to get into, as they don’t need an account unlike many other platforms – this makes a big difference
• Finally, and importantly, it’s machine readable by the software used by people with accessibility needs, which is important for equality / inclusion

This site has been set up by Ruchir Shah, with additional contributions from Julia Clough, Scottish Wildlife Trust, working in partnership with NatureScot. Information on this site is always provisional and in development. We are always interested in ideas and ways in which the data on this site can be presented accessibly to a range of audiences. Simply click discussion and post your feedback.

Aims and ambitions

What might this look like and entail?

There are already a number of real-world examples of where collaboration could help and what would result from that. For example:

• Community hubs online that use automated workflows to get survey information faster and involve more people (citizen scientists) directly in counting species, harvesting the images and producing interactive maps.
• Collective funding to help smaller organisations to move over to cloud-based platforms for example by providing expert advice.
• A space for people to share lessons learned from delivering big infrastructure projects.
• Collaboration on machine learning projects such as habitat recognition through remote sensing images.
• Ways in which organisations might be able to reach the public more effectively by supporting them to map their positive memories and emotions with their experience of nature.

Check out the new digital resource knowledge bank for a list of existing initiatives, where you can also add your own entries.

Engage

• Add a new resource

Delivery plan

Leading in a digital world	Leading in a digital world - blog by Ruchir Shah, Director of External Affairs, Scottish Wildlife Trust.
Seven areas of recent innovations in data-driven digital approaches to aid a green recovery	Seven areas of recent innovations in data-driven digital approaches to aid a green recovery
Concept for digital transformation	Concept for digital transformation	Completed
Planning webinar with eNGOs in Scotland	Planning webinar with eNGOs in Scotland	Completed
Inspiring Digital Transformation within the Environment Sector in Scotland	Inspiring Digital Transformation within the Environment Sector in Scotland - Seminar with CEOs	Completed
Digital resource knowledge bank	Digital resource directory for digital transformation within Scotland's environment sector.	Completed
Digital Transformation. Shaping our Digital Ambitions	Digital Transformation. Shaping our Digital Ambitions - 2nd senior leaders webinar	Completed
Digital Transformation. Shaping our Digital Ambitions	Digital Transformation. Shaping our Digital Ambitions - 2nd senior leaders webinar	Completed
Website planning	Website for digital transformation within Scotland's environment sector	Completed
Digital Transformation. Shaping our Digital Ambitions	Digital Transformation. Shaping our Digital Ambitions - 2nd senior leaders webinar	Completed
Statement of ambition	Joint statement of ambition around digital transformation for senior leaders within Scotland's environment sector.	Completed
Interactive sharing and learning workshop	Digital transformation sharing and learning workshop	Completed
Improved science	Improved science theme for digital transformation	In progress
Better engagement	Better engagement is a category we are using for digital transformation	In progress
Digital support	Digital support for digital transformation	In progress
Blog	Blogs on digital transformation within the environment sector in Scotland	In progress
Project output	Project outputs from this digital transformation initiative	In progress

Get involved

• Follow the links in the actions section above to participate in planning the activities
• Contact Ruchir Shah at the Scottish Wildlife Trust if you want to discuss any aspect of this resource privately.